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Hostess Foods in Liquidation after Labor Dispute

Hostess Brands is now going out of business and 18,500 workers are unemployed after six days of striking at more than 20 plants. With the company in Chapter 11 (for the second time since 2004), Hostess had asked employees to make concessions in order to stay in business, giving workers until 5:00pm yesterday to resume work. In court, they won the right to make these changes. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said in a statement. The Teamsters have accepted Hostess’ offer for their workers, but the bakers’ union was completely unwilling to do so.

The company, which is now 82 years old, has been battling the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. The union employs around 5,000 Hostess‘ 18,500 employees. The 300 plus workers who are on strike were been told that, if they did not return to work by 5:00 yesterday, they would be out of a job. In that case, work would cease as early as Tuesday for some companies.

These 300 workers have now forced all Hostess workers to become unemployed. Before liquidation, Hostess had already been forced to close 36 bakeries due to the strike, leaving 627 workers unemployed in Seattle, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Bakers’ union president Frank Hurt is unwilling for the union to take responsibility for their actions “Our members are on strike because they have had enough," bakers' union president Frank Hurt said. "They are not willing to take draconian wage and benefit cuts on top of the significant concessions they made in 2004 and give up their pension so that the Wall Street vulture capitalists in control of this company can walk away with millions of dollars.” As a privately held company, financial information is not publicly available.

Hostess saw things very differently. "We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said. "Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders."

However, Hostess fans need not despair completely. it is possible that popular names such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Wonder Bread will still live on as they would likely be bought by another company.

Does the old saying "cut off you nose to spite your face" come to mind. You gotta love the idiots in charge but if the sheep keep paying their dues to the unions, they don't give a damn cuz they have their cut.

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Representative today and urge him or her to support H.R. 3485, the “Employee Rights Act.” Introduced by Congressman Tom Price (R-GA), this bill would enable American workers to freely exercise their rights in the workplace by maintaining the right to a secret ballot, allowing workers to see their paychecks used as they intend, and making union membership the free choice of an individual employee rather than a mandate.

Senator Ted Cruz took to the floor of the US Senate yesterday just shortly after 2:30pm ET. His primary goals were to highlight the failures of ObamaCare, reading examples from real people all over America and talk about the importance of removing the funding for Obamacare. Senator Cruz spoke about the effect Obamacare on the American Dream -- and that people scared of standing up for their beliefs should remember how much more difficult things can be if they don't.

Personal Freedom and Prosperity 110: The Rule of Law Atop the confederation of executive agencies sits the Chief Executive and his immediate staff, who have been the greatest beneficiaries of the new technologies of government. The president (or prime minister) monitors and directs the activities of hundreds of agencies in real-time from a single locus of authority.

On Thursday, September 5, an evening seminar was held in Vancouver, Washington to discuss Right to Work legislation and how it could benefit the states of Washington and Oregon. The seminar, co-hosted by the Freedom Foundation of Olympia and the Cascade Policy Institute, featured Vincent Vernuccio of the Mackinac Center and Harry Beck of the Supreme Court Case, Beck v CWA. Participants paid $10 each to hear how Michigan beat the odds to enact Right to Work legislation and how it's changed the state.

Right to Work is sweeping the rust belt! Workers are free to choose whether or not they would like to join a union in Michigan and Indiana, in the heart of the rust belt, as well as in its further reaches such as Iowa.

The slow motion train wreck of Obamacare is picking up speed.Every few days, there’s another ugly story highlighting conservatives’ warnings about the unpopular boondoggle. Friday brought two more shockers that would cause the President deep embarrassment were he capable of it.The scandal-plagued IRS was chosen as the enforcement arm of Obamacare, so you think they would love their latest excuse to dig into Americans personal records and bully accordingly. But their highly partisan union has launched a letter-writing campaign to get out of its onerous requirements.

Detroit has gone belly up. The Motor City declared bankruptcy last week setting the stage for a contentious battle to right the city's sinking ship. At more than $18 billion in debt, the city now must find a way to satisfy their creditors and cut costs so basic services like ambulance, fire and police protection can come back online.

The average Ohio Education Association (OEA) employee was paid $43,838 more than Ohio’s average teacher in 2012, as OEA staff and officers raked in an average of $100,553 while the teachers forced to pay received an average of $56,715.Statewide average annual pay was $44,253 in 2012, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2003-2012, the gap between OEA employee pay and pay across all industries in Ohio grew from $45,002 to $56,300.